Having said goodbye to these quilts when I donated them recently, I’m showing them one last time just for fun!
Made from scraps
Wonky Log Cabin Remix, from scraps
Rescued Dots from a quilt that went wrong
A quilt made years ago, from actual yardage!
Another scrap quilt!And to my chagrin, there were three others I never even took pictures of! Anyway, these were fun and I’m now reminded to take pictures of everything!
My blogging friend Elizabeth (OP Quilt) has designed a number of nice patterns and I recently found myself “forced” to make one because it is so cute. Here is one of her samples.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Eastman
She has given instructions for multiple variations in the pattern. (I love all of them.)
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Eastman
Naturally, I didn’t quite follow the pattern. I had some cute fabric left from another project so used it for the town square in the center.
When I was finished, I wanted to make the quilt large enough to be used as a donation quilt (crib size), so I ordered some wilderness fabric to surround the town.
And here’s the finished quilt:
Quilt Stats
Name: Elizabeth’s Village
Pattern: Merrion Square, by Elizabeth Eastmond
Finished size: 39″ x 39″
Quilted by: Julia Madison
And yes, I used the same fabric for binding as for the border. You may want to check out Elizabeth’s beautiful projects on her blog and website: OPQuilt.com.
If you’re interested in her patterns, they are available through Payhip.
Here’s a quilt made from some blocks for a class I taught, plus a few 5″ squares that were in the stash. 
Look at the very fancy design quilted by Julia Madison!
And here’s a picture of the back.
I liked this quilt so well that I sent it to the newest member of our extended family, since we attended his parents’ wedding and even saw his Mother fairly recently.
Quilt stats:
Name: None; recipient is welcome to name it
Size: 40″ x 40″
Pattern: This is a variation of a block I learned from Barbara Lenox years ago
Fabric: Scraps from many years, as you probably can see!
Quilted by: Julia Madison
Pineapple Fabrics recently sent an email requesting blocks to be made into quilts for Brenner Children’s Hospital. Some days I feel completely overwhelmed with making donation quilts, but this looked easy and fun. They asked for applique pineapple blocks, using a template they provided.
Here are mine:
A couple of my quilting buddies made even more, and Chela even used Dr. Seuss fabric for hers!
Here is the link to the Pineapple Pieces Project if you are interested. Full disclosure: these blocks were as fun and easy as they looked, I also appreciated not having to make a whole top and quilt it!
And I have donated this little art quilt of to the Studio Art Quilt Association’s annual auction.
Quarantine has provided a lot of good quilting time, though I miss getting together with my quilting buddies! I hope you are finding benefits to enforced time at home, too.
One of my quilt groups makes donation quilts about 40″ square for various organizations. The size is easy to construct and quilt at home, and is appropriate for the children who receive the quilts. Here are the recent group donations:
We often use swap blocks for our quilts and recently decided on a new swap and I want to tell you about it. One of your quilt groups may enjoy it, too! Here’s how:
First make a big wonky log cabin block. Our blocks started with a 5″ square, which was modified to make a wonky center. It was then surrounded by strips from my scrap bins, and occasional strips were trimmed so they were wonky, too. 
These big blocks are 21″ square (unfinished).
We cut each block in quarters, so each quarter is 10.5″ unfinished, and started arranging them to make a quilt top that would finish at 40″ square.
This was how we eventually decided to arrange them in the finished top:
And then, of course, we made 4 more:
If you decide to do this, there are only 2 things to watch out for:
This is a really fun way to use scraps! If you make one, or use this for a group swap, send me a picture!
Many of my scrap quilts are inspired by other quilters. I still find it useful to start with a collection of fabrics I think “go together”. In that regard, I do NOT worry about color per se, though I recognize that color is a big “bugaboo” for many quilters. I do find it useful to decide at the outset whether the quilt is to be bright or muted colors, but beyond that I don’t worry much. And of course I break that rule sometimes, too.
One of my first inspired-by-others adventures was a series of quilts I made after reading Gwen Marston’s books. I just love her aesthetic, and wish I had been able to take a class with her while she was alive. Here is a quilt I made for the Quilt Alliance annual contest a few years ago, based on Gwen’s published quilts:
“Gwen Visits the Farm” is a quilt I made for the Quilt Alliance contest; the black fabric has words representing animal sounds such as “quack”
I also used a collection of Cherrywood scraps to make this quilt based on Gwen’s “liberated log cabin” idea:
Cherrywood Toss, 59″ x 61″, 2016. My favorite part of this was making the background out of a mixture of dark colors.
Also, taking a cue from my friend who makes a small art quilt each week, I made these 3 quilts based on lessons in one of Gwen’s books:
I continue to learn from the quilters I consider “the best” by making quilts inspired by their ideas. A recent one was inspired by Maria Shell’s tutorial on improvised flying geese:
The colors of the quilt blended with the colors of my chimney, where I stuck it up to be photographed
Of course, not all such experiments are particularly successful. I love Freddy Moran’s aesthetic, but this table runner based on her ideas didn’t turn out very well, in my opinion. I expect to make more things using her ideas, and they’ll improve 🙂
I designed and made this runner for a guild challenge
Since, at this point in my quilting career, most of my fabric collection is scraps, there will be many more scrap quilts to come! Next week I’ll discuss how I use scraps in quilts made from patterns.
I’m making a concerted effort to get rid of more UFOs (UnFinished Objects) this year. Of course, the real challenge is to avoid creating new ones!
This is the third time I’ve made the Lombard Street pattern by Sassafras Lane Designs. This shows how much I love the design–usually I make any pattern only once. Here are the previous quilts:
And here is the completed UFO, ready to be donated at the next retreat with my donation quilt group:
Quilt Stats
Pattern: Lombard Street by Sassafras Lane. This is the smallest of 3 sizes.
Finished size: 39.5″ x 43.5″
Fabric is scraps for the triangles and solid from stash for the background and binding.
Pieced by me, though it took over a year.
Quilted by me.
If you want to make one, you can get your own copy of the Lombard Street pattern here.
I now belong to THREE groups that make donation quilts, and it may be a bit much. I’ve decided to focus on the group I’ve been working with the longest, both because it was the original and because we donate the quilts locally. (I fear there’s some truth to Garrison Keillor’s quip that most donation quilts sent to other countries go to hot climates where their best use is as compost.)
I see from my notes that I fell behind on donation quilts over a year ago due to being over-committed. Duh. Anyway, here are my recent attempts to catch up.
I found this panel in the SCRAP BIN at a shop where I teach, so I got it for $1 an ounce! The finished quilt is 34″ x 44″.
This top was started over a year ago when I wanted to experiment with half-rectangle triangles. The finished quilt is 40″ x 48″
This was made from slabs swapped in one of my groups. I spy some orphan blocks incorporated into slabs!
This one was done for leaders and enders, and is going to have to be entitled “Nobody’s Perfect”! Finished size is 34″ x 39″
I made this after starting the blocks as a class demonstration last time I taught “Twinkle”. Finished size is 40″ x 40″
I can just hear somebody saying, “Well! That certainly is a variety!” It would be more efficient to make the same pattern multiple times, but I just can’t do it.
What are your favorite donation quilt patterns?
Have you heard of the San Jose (California) Museum of Quilts and Textiles? No? Well here you go:
Image courtesy of wikimedia commons. Here’s the attribution: By Daderot – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18332195
The museum is currently hosting a Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) exhibit entitled Guns: Loaded Conversations. The exhibit is intended to spark thoughtful conversation about the history and culture of guns in our society. I would hope the conversation could calm some of the hysteria on both sides of this difficult issue.
Photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org
The pictures featured here are not of the current exhibition. The museum did not respond to my request for photos that could be shared here, so these are from Wikimedia Commons.
The exhibit is to be followed by museum participation in a gun buy-back program sponsored by the museum and the San Jose police department. For this unique buy-back, persons surrendering guns will receive not only money, but a quilt!
The museum needs donations of both quilts and money for this project. The quilts can be any design or color, but should be lap size or larger. They do not need to be either for or against gun control, just a regular quilt. If you are interested in donating a quilt, contact the museum. I’m not sure about donating a quilt, but the museum looks worth a visit if I’m ever in California!
I’ve been working on a project to be published in Modern Quilts Unlimited in late summer, so there have been no pictures of current sewing lately. However, that is now finished and I’m focusing on several other projects coming right up.
First, I’m going to be teaching a very un-modern quilt at Studio Stitch in Greensboro in May.
Sunbonnet Sue Visits Quilt in a Day
This is an old, old Eleanor Burns version of Sunbonnet Sue but the pattern is still available. It’s the easiest way I know to do perfect applique! And it’s fun to add trinkets, like this fish bead hanging from Overall Sam’s fishing rod:
Also, I’ve signed up for Quiltfest. Luckily, it’s in July when I’ll have some vacation time available again. I’m going to be making a boxy tote with Carrie Licatovich and a star quilt with Renny Jaeger. Then I’m signed up for “shibori resist with indigo dying”, taught by Debbir Maddy. Which reminds me, I haven’t used the fabrics I made in my last dying class… I always enjoy Quiltfest because it’s just the right size: There are well-known teachers, but not a crush of thousands of participants. And of course there are sales at Tennessee Quilts, too! Oops!
Finally, I’ve finished a donation quilt. I’ve gotten far, far behind on my donation quilts, so those will be floating to the top of the to-do list soon. Here’s the first one, finally quilted and bound:
The concentric squares are pieced; the other pieces are a print from Michael Miller
Do you have any fun quilt events coming up?
